I. Wish.
Five of ESPN's top hoop "gurus" ranked their Top 10 most underachieving basketball programs of the past 10 years. Georgia made three of the five lists. Dawgnoxious found the silver lining here:
At least people believe we're capable of being a better program. It would worse if they thought this was as good as we could be.Given the in state recruiting base and the brief moments of explosive results ('83, '90, '96, '02, and '03), it's hard to argue that there is big upside here. So I think the inclusion on this list is totally fair.
My own Top 3 Underachievers list for the same period:
- 1. Arkansas - How the mighty have fallen. A world class arena, all the Wal-Mart money and an elite tradition has gotten them John Pelphrey. Seriously? Pelphrey?
2. Michigan - Like Arkansas and Georgia, probation has been an anchor on the program. The other anchor being Tommy Amaker's offense, defense and recruiting.
3. Missouri - Fourteen Big 8 Regular Season and/or Conference Tourney titles and 21 NCAA appearances for this tradition rich program. Only one Sweet 16 trip in the past 10 seasons. Facilities include a new $75 million arena which opened in '04.
Others who achieve mind blowingly little despite their recruiting, conference, tradition, and/or facilities are UVA, South Carolina, St. John's and Purdue. I'll never understand how St. John's can accomplish so little in hoops.
See Also:
-- Bestwick on The future of UGA Hoops - GSB
-- UGA Hoops: If I only knew how to quit you - GSB ('06)
PWD
5 comments:
1997 was a great year as well.
UVA is an interesting situation. They were terrific throughout the 80s (if underachieving in the early 80s, from the monumental expectations standpoint) and early 90s. Jeff Jones, who took over for Terry Holland, was iirc the quickest coach to 100 wins in ACC history (memory might be failing me, and it may be that he was the youngest to 100 wins). Everything was going great for them; he was winning and recruiting really well. Then the scandal broke and it turned out he was diddling everything with a pulse.
They haven't recovered. Leito looks like he is doing a good job, though.
Seeing St. John's and Rutgers on those lists seems appropriate. You can add Seton Hall too. I've never figured out how a hoops talent hotbed like NYC (it makes south Florida football look talent-poor) doesn't have a powerhouse program.
There's UConn and Syracuse, but those are about as NYC as Domino's Pizza. The CCNY basketball scandal in the '50s blew up a vibrant hoops scene, and except for St. John's brief run, it's never recovered. Even the NIT, once the center of college hoops, has suffered the same fate.
New York doesn't have great high school talent anymore ... that's how. There's just not a lot of top talent here, and what there is so mired with hangers on and the like that it's a mess to deal with them.
Interesting that Bilas doesn't have Michigan in his top TEN, while the other four have them as their number ONE?!
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